Dying With Dignitas

In the March issue of TheAtlantic, Bruce Falconer investigates a controversial company:

Dignitas’s slogan is “To live with dignity, to die with dignity,”
and for 12 years the group has been serving cocktails of sodium
pentobarbital, a highly lethal barbiturate, to clients from around the
world. During that time, Ludwig Minelli has helped more than a thousand
people kill themselves, and he has cornered the market in what has come
to be called “suicide tourism,” transforming his native Zurich into the
undisputed world capital of assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide is also legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, and
Luxembourg, as well as in the American states of Oregon, Washington,
and Montana. But in all those places, the practice is restricted to
people with incurable diseases, involves extensive medical testing and
consultation with physicians, and requires that applicants be permanent
residents. By contrast, Switzerland’s penal code was designed such
that, without fear of prosecution, you can hand someone a loaded pistol
and watch as he blows his brains out in your living room.

"The Suicide Tourist," directed by John Zaritsky and aired on Frontline, focuses entirely on the human side of Dignitas - namely, a poignant profile of Craig Ewert's final days with his wife and Lou Gehrig's Disease.

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